French `Path Of Gauguin` Exhibition Is A Beauty From Catalog To

Gallery

January 12, 1986|By Alan G. Artner, Art critic.

Before permanently leaving Europe for Tahiti, a penniless Paul Gauguin asked August Strindberg to write a preface for a sale of his paintings. The Swedish playwright, who said he neither understood nor liked the artist`s work, declined in a letter so perceptive that Gauguin used it anyway. One of its many fine touches was a vision of public approval that would bring the artist the mixed blessing of a band of partisans.

Strindberg did not know that Gauguin already had followers. Influenced by his expressive attitude toward color, they had come together nearly a decade before and had called themselves the Nabis. Spiritual leader of the group was Maurice Denis, who worked in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a town not far from the center of Paris.

At the time of Gauguin`s departure, Denis was living in a house overlooking a Jesuit priory. He later acquired the priory and dwelt there until his death in 1943. Five years ago last October, the building reopened as the Musee du Prieure, an institution devoted to art of the Symbolists and Nabis. Its wonderful anniversary exhibition, now showing, goes back to the source: ``The Path of Gauguin--Genesis and Influence.``

This is the kind of artist-and-his-times show that the French do extremely well. Gauguin is represented by more than 100 works, including 42 paintings; but 250 other pieces also are featured, and such additions make a crucial difference.

We know, for example, that Gauguin and Van Gogh had different tastes in artists. In 1888 Gauguin wrote, ``He (Van Gogh) admires Daumier, Daubigny, Ziem and (Theodore) Rousseau, whom I can`t stand.`` But 14 years earlier, Gauguin obviously was looking at Rousseau when he painted a landscape titled

``Clairiere``; the exhibition indicates the extent of his indebtedness by setting the piece alongside Rousseau`s ``The Little Fisherman.``

Later we also see how a visit to the Musee de l`Homme in Paris crystallized one of Gauguin`s most powerful images, a sorrowing female with hands to head and knees raised. Photographs of Durer`s ``Melancholy`` and Van Gogh`s ``Sorrow`` give possible artistic sources, though they pale next to the actual Peruvian mummy Gauguin saw at the museum. His ``Grape-Harvest in Arles`` and, in turn, works by Paul Ranson, Paul Serusier and Aristide Maillol are shown to have been influenced by the grisly remains.

In general, the exhibition is organized chronologically, according to the impact of places: Paris, Pontoise, Rouen, Pont-Aven and so on. However, within this framework three important themes are developed. At these points the works of contemporaries are introduced.

One begins with Gauguin`s 1888 canvas ``Les Alyscamps`` and traces its effect on other artists` color. Another traces the impact of Japanese prints on ``Children Wrestling`` (1888) and subsequent works by four of the Nabis. Finally, and most importantly, Gauguin`s ``Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ`` (1889) is displayed with the 17th Century crucifix that inspired it plus several religious works by his followers.

Of course, a fair number of paintings on the themes (both by Gauguin and others) are not included, and some crucial relationships--for instance, Gauguin`s to Puvis de Chavannes--are treated rather cursorily. Still, everything we do see proves illuminating, with neither drawings nor prints nor sculpture nor ceramics being slighted.

Were this not enough, there also is a special section devoted to evoking the Brittany inn of Marie Henry, whose dining room walls were decorated by Gauguin and his friends, Serusier, Meyer de Haan and Charles Filiger. Several of their actual pieces have been found and placed in a life-size photographic environment that features much documentary material on Henry`s collection. There, at the very top of the museum, one has a sense of discovery not unlike Andre Gide`s when, in 1889, totally by chance, he came upon the inn. It is a remarkably successful re-creation.

For the run of the show a substantial portion of the museum`s permanent collection is being displayed concurrently in Denis` studio across the garden. This would be worth seeing in any case, although a somewhat greater surprise comes from the priory chapel that Denis completely redecorated. A second nice ``side trip`` from the exhibition is offered from a window on high surrounded by the religious works of Gauguin and others. Here one especially feels how much a fine show can be enhanced by an appropriate setting.

The catalog, too, is a beautiful achievement and was honored as such by a year-end prize from the Academie des Beaux-Arts. It is available in both hard- cover and paperback at, respectively, 200 and 300 francs, which even with weakening of the American dollar remains a good value.

``The Path of Gauguin--Genesis and Influence`` has been extended through March 2 at the Musee du Prieure, 2 rue Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. It is not scheduled to travel.